Siege My Mind
by GringoKity
Summary: Sam finds himself in a situation, he's not sure he can get out of. Rated for Language, Violence, and Disturbing scenarios !some sexual content!
1. NSA Locked Away

Sam Fisher found himself on standard sized, metal frame cot. His mouth was dry and his head was spinning. He looked around in the dark, but couldn't see anything without his night vision goggles. Reaching his hand up to switch them on, he realized his hand wouldn't move. He felt a little relief when he noticed that his hands were tied down to the bed and not paralyzed, but that quickly faded. Not being able to see his legs, he tried moving them and knew that they were fastly secured as well. He could be out of this situation if he could find something to pick the restraints with, but how had he come to be here tied to the bed and in pajamas! The fact that Sam only remembered what he had been doing yesterday to prepare for this mission, gave him great cause for concern. Here was Sam Fisher the Splinter Cell of the Third Echelon, strapped to a bed, by what looked like leather padded restraints. Where was his OPSAT and uniform that he had been wearing just before today? They had obviously taken it off and moved them into another room. He would just have to find them once he unlocked the simple lock on the cuffs around his hands and legs. Searching in vain for some sort of temporary lock pick, Sam began to get frustrated.

Before he could come up with a good plan of escape, the overhead lights flicked on and blinded him with their brightness. Someone in a white uniform came through the door and watched him struggle against his confinement. Sam urged his breathing to still and his mind to clear, but he only became confused and disoriented. The rush of blood had gone straight to his head. They had to have been keeping him sedated with some pretty messed up shit for him to feel this ill now.

The guy in the white uniform was dressed like a character out of some movie. His hair was short, almost military short, but he was a big guy, to be dressed like an orderly. He didn't say a word, but stared at Fisher for about a minute and walked back out into the hall.

A few minutes later a woman, dressed in the doctor-like white uniform and over coat, waltzed in with her pen tapping on a clipboard and glasses perched on the end of her nose. Her blonde hair was pulled tight into a bun on the back of her head; in the classic fashion of a TV doctor on a soap opera...not that Fisher had actually watched the soaps. She was slender and damn sexy in that uniform, but Sam was used to depressing his urges, even when they came in the shape of a leggy blonde with curves that could derail a train.

"So, Mr. Fisher..." She consulted her clipboard again and looked up at him over the rim of her glasses. "How are we feeling today?" She sat in a chair intimately close to Fisher's cot and took his pulse. At least that was what Sam figured she was doing. "You're pulse is very fast. Were you just struggling to get up again?"

"Again?" His voice felt rough and un-used.

"You know Mr. Fisher, we're here to help you, but we can't do that if you try to escape every day." She checked his cuffs briefly. "They're not too tight are they?"

"A little." Sam thought if they were a little looser he might be able to finagle his way out of them, but that would hurt a whole hell of a lot no matter what. He was sure the bands would force him to break a bone or two in his hands, just to get them through the leather. Maybe he could escape while they loosened them up? "Look Doc, could you loosen them up a bit?"

"You know what happened last time...I'll send in the orderly to loosen them up after we have our session. Our little chat, as I like to call it."

Sam decided that she was a hardened bitch, under all that pretty make up and mannerly ways. She acted nice on the outside, but was really very condescending. "I don't remember anything."

"You don't?" That damn voice made him want to punch her in the mouth that was so neatly painted in dark pink lipstick. "You don't recall anything from our visits?" She scribbled something down on her clipboard. "Tell me what you do remember."

Sam kept his mouth shut. He didn't want to spill the beans about his upcoming mission or the NSA. She could torture him all she wanted. She wouldn't get a peep out of him. Sam couldn't remember anything beyond packing his "work clothes" and dressing in his uniform for the nights "business." He wasn't about to tell her that.

The doctor folded her arms over her chest and reclined a bit in the chair. "You've had another episode haven't you? I keep telling you Mr. Fisher, that you can't keep living in this imaginary world. You need to get past these dreams and move on to real life. We want you to become a prominent member of society and how can we accomplish that if you insist that you're some sort of spy?"

"What?" His head whipped around so fast, that he thought he might be sick all over the doctor's lovely white uniform.

"We've been over this a million times, Mr. Fisher." Her eyes were icy shards of blue. "There is no NSA, or at least no Third Echelon, and if there was...you're not in it."

"You know who I am?" This time Sam felt more than a little angry and a whole lot sick. He threw up some clear liquid on the floor. She merely moved her feet out of the way, so her shoes wouldn't get spoiled. "Get me out of here, you dumb-ass bitch!" He shouted, dribbling clear gunk slowly from his bottom lip like a slow pouring oil lamp.

Her lips curled into a sort of half smile, as she tried to calm him down. "We know all about you Mr. Fisher. Please be calm. I don't want to have to sedate you again." She placed a hand on his chest as if acknowledging his anger. "You've been here for quite some time. We just want to help you." Sam gave up trying to break the constraints on his arms and legs. "There, isn't that better? Just relax and we'll get through this one step at a time." He was still very pissed off at the situation he woke up to, but he figured that it would only be a matter of time... "Tell me about your latest dream. Last time you mentioned a voice inside your head..."

Sam refused to acknowledge her and kept his mouth shut. He didn't know what was going on, or what sick, twisted game she was playing, but he wasn't going to fall for it. She began to write something down again and got up to leave.

"Well Mr. Fisher, it's clear to me that in your delusional state, you're not going to help me help you get better...nothing more for me today, so I'll be going." She turned her back on him, but only for a moment. It was as though she was anticipating his response.

"Wait!" She turned around. Sam decided it was a good idea to play along with her, until he could get a clear idea on who was doing this and how they had captured him. Besides, once he got out he was going to break her pretty, white neck.

Session one went all right, but Sam was starting to think maybe she was right and that he was insane. Coming from a man in hospital pajamas, the things he was saying sounded like utter nonsense. Only a lunatic could think up most of the Third Echelon. He was given a sedative at the end of their "little chat" and he fell into a dreamless sleep. She had grilled him on the supposed voices that were in his head.

"What's your name, Doctor?"

The doctor looked at him critically and then agreed to tell him her name. "Jerika Zithers. You may call me Dr. Zithers."

Sam was still strapped tightly to the cot and the doctor wasn't about to let him loose. "I promise not to hurt you, if you let me sit up."

"HA! Mr. Fisher, we can't trust you since last time you said that." She chuckled. "You say the same thing every day. Every day you wake up as if nothing happened the day before. You don't remember our conversations or me. You don't remember busting up two orderlies last week. You don't remember trying to stab me in the neck with my own pen. You don't remember anything of your life here at the institute. All you remember is this silly story about being a NSA spy." She was calm through the whole account, but Sam chalked that up to her profession. She must be quite good at getting information. "Tell me something about your daughter."

"You said you know everything about me already, so you must know everything about my daughter." Sam wasn't about to let them get his daughter again.

She didn't want to push him into another delusional fit so she changed the subject. "OK, then tell me again about the voice in your head. Is it many voices, or just the one?"

He could tell her that it's the devil playing in his head and telling him to kill her, but that kind of psycho stuff never set well with Fisher. He was a straightforward kind of man. "Just the one."

"I see." She wrote something else down and looked back up at him. "What does this person say to you? Does he ever tell you to do stuff?"

"Like what?" He sighed and rolled his eyes. If this was going where he thought it was going, then he was going to have to be very careful on what he said next.

"Like does he ever tell you to do bad things? Does he want you to...I don't know...kill people?" Her eyes were watching him like a true psychiatric doctor. "Sam...May I call you Sam?" She continued to ask him questions using his given name. "Sam, are you hearing him right now?"

"No."

This answer evidently disappointed the doctor. She called in the orderly, after Sam's sustained silence. The orderly came in and gave Sam an injection that made things slide out of focus and a high-pitched hum floods his ears. Sam would have struggled, but what was the point? He was too secure to get away from the injection and they would have just kneeled on his chest to jab the needle in his arm.

After a few minutes, the doctor sat back down with her clipboard. The drugs had taken full effect and he was feeling somewhat less grumpy old Sam. Her hands were cold as her fingers gripped his chin, so she could steady his head and look directly in his eyes. He actually wanted to laugh, but held it in.

"You're not bad lookin' doc." His head came off the pillow a few inches, as if he were trying to kiss her, while she was bent over him. She pushed his head back and straightened. "I have seen a lot of women in my life."

She smiled almost pleasantly. "Is that sexually, or in your mind Sam?"

He grunted, but didn't answer her. It was only a passing giddiness that made him admit that he thought she was attractive at all. Sam was by nature, a tight-lipped man, who didn't like to speak more than necessary. Even drugged up, Sam was a quiet guy. He needed prompting.

"Sam, I want to tell me the name of the person who talks to you in your head." She leaned in to hear him better.

"Danny Glover." Sam shook his head, his eyes rolled around as he tried to maintain focus.

"Danny Glover is in your head?" Dr. Zithers frowned. She thought he was trying to be funny. The drugs were more powerful than she figured, but she waited a second longer.

"No. Not Danny Glover. He just looks like him...Lambert." His eyes closed and she considered, that maybe he had fallen asleep. He began humming a song she didn't recognize. "Lambert the sheepish lion." He smiled something soft and dreamlike about that smile, almost a child quality played over his normally stern lips.

The drugs were making him sleepy and disoriented, so she tried to speed things along. "Does Lambert speak to you all the time?"

"No."

"Do you talk to him?" She looked quite interested.

"No." His monosyllable answers made her purse her lips.

"Why don't you talk to him?"

"I can't." His finger twitched as if he was hearing something in his head.

"Is Lambert speaking to you now? Why don't you answer him?" She watched, as Sam struggled again to get his hand loose. "Would you like me to let your hand loose so you can talk to Lambert?" She was only suggesting it, to test his reaction, but she had no intentions of letting him loose. "Are you listening to me, Sam? I can let you talk to Lambert, if you want. How do you contact him?"

"I can't." He said again and yawned. "Are you going to kill me yet?"

His words make her stop writing and look at him intently. "What made you say that?"

"It's what you do, when I don't answer the questions you want me to answer." His eyes popped open again and they looked cold and hard now. The drugs were wearing off already, but he was still gazing around the room, his vision blurred. "I'm Third Echelon, Splinter Cell. You can't leave me alive, unless you want to keep me tied to this bed for the rest of my life...eventually I'll manage to escape, or die trying."

She switched her mood again. "Mr. Fisher, pay attention to me now." His eyes locked on her face once more and she felt an odd chill run up her spine, before she spoke. "We're not here to harm you. We're here to help you."

Dr. Zithers stood up and stretched her back. She pushed her glasses higher on her nose and scanned her papers before leaving. The orderly switched off the lights and Sam was left alone bathed in darkness. He heard keys rattle and the door being locked. All his life he hadn't felt as alone as he did now.

"Why?" His heart asked him. "I've been alone most of my life, with only my work to keep my loneliness at bay...my daughter..." He whispered to the dark.

* * *

The next morning, Sam woke to the sound of keys jingling in the lock. At least, he thought it was morning, since he had neither a clock nor a window in his room to tell him the time. Again, his head felt woozy, like it was shoved full of cotton balls and his stomach pitched, when he moved his head to see who was entering his cell. That's how he thought of his room now, fore surely he was in a prison. The walls were entirely gray brick, the ceiling was gray brick, the floor was concrete, and his bed was a completely uncomfortable, thin foam mat over a hard steel frame. The orderly entered first, switching on the lights as he went.

Dr. Zithers came in next, holding a pen and her ever-present clipboard, for taking notes. Today she was dressed the same as yesterday, but her hair was in a short ponytail, rather than a bun. That hairstyle made her look a bit younger than her thirty-five years, Sam estimated her to be. She came over to Sam and glanced over his body, before sitting in the only chair in the room.

"Do you recognize me today, Sam?" She peered into his eyes with a penlight. He nodded, but said nothing. "Would you like to use the restroom before we begin today?" She asked the orderly to give him a mild sedative, when he nodded again. "It's only a precaution. We don't need any more injuries."

The orderly injected Sam in the arm and pulled out a separate key, one that wasn't on the big key ring on his belt, from his shirt pocket. The doctor gave him a nod of her own, when he looked to her for assurance.

"Mr. Fisher is going to be good today. Aren't you Sam?" Sam raised an eyebrow at her tone of voice, but gave her his word not to harm anyone for now. "I'm sure Mr. Fisher would enjoy some time in the sunshine, but after the last time...I think we'll stick to the indoors for now."

The orderly slipped some standard issue, hard sole, non-slip slippers on to his feet and unlocked the cuffs on his ankles and wrists. If they only knew how easily, it would be for him to wrap his legs around the orderly's thick neck and crush the breath out of him, while knocking the doctor to the floor... He had no clue of how many guards, locked doors, and doctors with tranquilizer guns he would have to go through. The sedative was nowhere as strong as the one they had used on him yesterday and he wondered why. He was actually able to get up today, so why had they used such a heavy dose on him when he had been restrained compared to now, when he could actually get away, or at least attempt to escape.

He was taken to a small, enclosed room that held a toilet and a sink, which didn't even have a mirror over it. It was just a little wider than the toilet and the orderly stood in the doorway watching.

"Want my measurements?" Sam grumbled about people spying on people in the john. "Look buddy, I can't go with you staring at me like that."

"That ain't my problem, buddy." The orderly put an emphasis on the last word. "Either you go now, or not at all."

"So you can talk?" Sam dropped his pajama bottoms and took a leak, relieving the pressure in his bladder. He'd been holding it in for over two hours, not wanting to be subject to the humiliation of a bedpan. Even an NSA spy had to urinate. "What now?" He washed his hands and dried them.

"That's up to the doctor." The orderly rumbled. To Sam, he sounded a lot like a bear.

The doctor arrived, as if she had been cued from somewhere off stage. "Mr. Fisher lets go in to the common room. Today is Wednesday and on every Wednesday, we have group sessions." Sam shrugged and followed her like a docile puppy. The orderly took up rear guard and reminded Sam that a large dose of sedative was coming his way, if he misbehaved. "I would like to get you on a set schedule. Up until now, you've been very unresponsive and hard to handle...shall we say un-predictable."

"I wonder why that is." Sam wasn't wondering any such thing. He was wondering how that doctor fit into such a tight dress and still made it look professional enough to be respectable. "Hey doc, what brought you to a facility like this?"

She paused only long enough to give Sam a quick glance. "That's none of your business."

They turned a corner and ended up in a large black and white common room. It had some windows lining one wall, but they were all thick, protective glass and as if that wasn't enough to deter an escapee, then they had massive iron bars over them embedded into the white brick walls. This room was full of chairs and tables, but they were in the center of the room where everyone was gathered.

"Do we get to eat at this place, or what?" Sam's stomach protested at being empty.

The orderly sat a chair in the ring of other patients and had Sam sit down with a heavy hand on his shoulder. Sam looked up at him, as if he was about to break his hand off if he manhandled him again, but thanked him instead. Sandwiches were passed out and small drinks of water in paper cups were handed to each patient. All the "guests" of the institute were given a separate smaller cup of pills and even Sam received a rainbow mix.

Many of the patients chugged the water and popped the pills without a seconds thought. Sam stared into the paper cup and sat it aside. "I don't need any, thanks." The doctor looked at him sharply, but told the orderly to back off.

"Sam, those pills are just vitamin compounds that suppress hallucinations and emotional outbursts, but we won't press the subject at the moment." She made a note and looked to the others in the room. "Who wants to start today?"

A girl with short dark hair that hung in her face raised her hand shakily. Her feet were pulled up on the chair she was sitting in and her chin was resting on her knees. She was also in the standard issue pajamas, but she lacked the slippers and her small feet looked cold.

"Yes Carly?" The doctor acknowledged her hand, which Carly lowered and brushed the hair out of her face with a quick, nervous motion.

Sam almost choked on the tuna fish sandwich that tasted like stale bread. "Carly?" He drained the paper cup of water and looked to the orderly for more. The girl in front of him looked an awful lot like Carly St. John, now that he got a better look at her.

She darted him a suspicious look, but addressed the doctor. "Dr. Zithers, we have to introduce the new member of the group. It's how things are done." She sniffed and wiped her nose on the back of her hand. Her eyes looked so blank, like she hadn't slept in days.

Carly wasn't anything like what Sam remembered her to be. Her face was gaunt and she had dark circles under her eyes. She was fidgety and nervous, looking from Sam to the others in the room. She reminded him of a little girl, at her first funeral.

Another person stood up and pointed his finger at Sam. "Yes! Tell us your name stranger." He shouted accusingly, with a wild look in his eyes.

"Paul, please sit down." Dr. Zithers was standing now. "Paul, sit." Paul flinched, looked at the doctor, and sat down in a hurry. "Why the outburst, Paul?" Paul was still glaring at Sam. "Paul?"

Paul broke eye contact and looked at the floor, where he had been looking before Carly spoke up. "He didn't introduce himself." Paul explained. He was much more humble now. He knew that the orderlies were watching him closely and that another outburst could get him tackled and injected with another sedative.

"Stand up and tell them who you are." Dr. Zithers directed her voice to Sam, but kept her eyes on the emotional Paul.

Sam stood up and all eyes fell on him. "I'm Sam Fisher." He sat back down.

Orderlies around the room sighed and relaxed against whatever door jam or wall they were standing by. Sam wasn't sure if they're worried about Paul or him.

The doctor switched topics. "Sam, do you have anything to add to that?" She picked up her clipboard and was poised to write down anything of interest.

He shook his head, but changed his mind. "Yeah, I want to know where the other doctors are."

His question gave her pause, yet she recovered quickly. "Dr. Martin and Dr. Keith are in their offices, but Varesoli is on vacation." She kept her head down, apparently very engrossed in the scratches on the notepad. "Do you have any more questions or comments?" He didn't speak up, so she moved on. "Anyone else has any concerns about anything, or does anyone just want to talk? Any new problems?" With the last query, she addressed the group as a whole, glancing from face to face.

Carly raised her hand again. She got a nod from the doctor. Her hand went down. "Can I get my baseball cap back?" She was trembling. "I really need my hat."

Dr. Zithers leaned towards the girl. "Carly, I think you know the answer to that." Carly began rocking back and forth. "You use that hat like a security blanket. It was also a reminder of your old life of drug abuse and prostitution."

Sam jumped to Carly's defense, outraged. "She never used drugs in her life!" Orderlies rushed him. They knew his reputation as a dangerous and unstable character. "Carly. Tell these idiots..." Carly was now crying with her face buried in her knees. "I know you." Sam hip checked an orderly and nearly got loose, but there were three burly men holding him now. "She's not a prostitute either. Her parents sent her to college and she's a crack expert at code breaking."

"Crack whore maybe." Someone snickered.

Paul put in his two cents. "Did you meet her as a dealer or as a customer?"

A third person coughed, which was meant to cover up the word "slut."

Sam used the orderlies to his advantage and leverage, kicking off the floor, his foot connected with Paul's nose, breaking it with a satisfactory crunch. He felt somewhat vindicated, but the orderlies took him down, with a group effort. One of them removed the protective cap of a syringe, with his teeth and plunged it into his arm. Immediately, he slid into a stupor and was carried back to his seat. His head slumped forward his breathing became ragged.

Carly was crying hysterically, but Dr. Zithers was trying to comfort her. She stroked her back soothingly. "Take them to their rooms." She told the orderlies. "I don't think Mr. Fisher can be trusted to take his own medication. I need to get him stabilized and on meds. One of you can crumble them up and put them in his food. I don't want anyone talking to him, but me." Carly was carried out of the main room, kicking and screaming. "The rest of you, go back your rooms. We'll finish our chat next time."

Everyone shambled off, their feet shuffling listlessly on the tile. Paul was taken to the medical wing.


	2. Intimate Details

Damn, I hate being drugged." Sam grunted and tried to roll over, but he was, once again, tied down to the cot. "Hi doc." He tried a smile, but he wasn't in the mood.

"Sam." Dr. Zithers doesn't look happy. She continues to ignore him for a while, writing notes and just being an observer.

He can't stand the silent treatment. "Why is Carly here?" His voice sounds irritated. He hadn't been all that aware of his attachment to the pixie-like girl, who had saved his life so many times in the past. Her hacker information had saved him more than one time. "She shouldn't be here."

Taking off her glasses and rubbing the bridge of her nose, the doctor keeps her anger from showing. "Doesn't she?" An orderly enters, the same gorilla from before. He has a tray of food and a glass of water. He hands her the food and she presents it to Sam, by taking the lid off of the plate and allowing the aroma to reach his nose. The orderly leaves and they are alone once more.

"Sam, I don't know what's going on in that head of yours." She holds out the tray, so he can see what's on it. Steaming mashed potatoes and chipped beef adorn the plate. "I'm going to unlock one of your hands so you can feed yourself, but I want you to promise to me that I won't be in any danger." Sam's stomach rumbles at the smell of food. "You haven't taken in enough nourishment." She sits the plate of food in her chair and unlocks his left hand, thinking it's likely the lesser of two evils. "I'm sure you don't want to be force-fed, even by me."

The food smells and tastes better than the dry sandwich he had choked down yesterday.

"You have a lot of suppressed anger and a volatile nature, that you've transformed into this alternate life at the Third Echelon." She's seated again and writing notes like always, but she seems to be distracted. "I can't keep you strapped to the bed. It's not healthy."

"This taste pretty good, for hospital food." Sam finishes his meal in military fashion and hands her the empty plate. "Can I get up? I'm sore from laying here all day. These beds aren't beds at all, but some form of torture."

"Later, you can take a shower and get some fresh clothes on." The orderly comes and takes the tray full of dishes. "James will take you to the rest room and we can talk some more, when you get back."

"Thanks."

"How do you know Carly St. John?" Dr. Zithers was back in the role of interrogator, when Sam returns from the rest room.

"She was in the NSA." He hadn't meant to say anything, but after eating he felt more open and ready to talk. "Carly has a desk job."

"What did she do there?"

The words just tumble out. "She's a computer hacker, a few years older than my own daughter." He didn't know why he was so chatty. "Lambert introduced us a few years back. She was just a kid and still in school...too young for me."

"That's interesting. Have you entertained thoughts of being her lover?" Her voice cracks and Sam wonders if maybe she's a bit jealous. "You're a fine specimen of a man, but you feel too old for Carly?"

"As young as she was, she's a great hacker and code breaker. I have a lot of respect for her abilities...to piece all the stuff I give her..."

"You find that attractive?"

"Sometimes I find myself thinking about her when I'm working. I owe her a lot. She's an asset to my job."

"Do you think you have an intimacy problem Sam? Perhaps, you associate Carly's profession as a _paid companion_ somewhat shocking, so you've created a place for her in this other life. Did you go out on many dates before you came here? How did you really come across this Carly girl?"

"I've told you. Carly was introduced to me by Lambert at the NSA headquarters. I don't see what my dating habits have to do with being here." Sam was still free to roam the room, but the good doctor looked a little worried about him moving about like a caged lion. "I don't date. Is that a crime?"

"No, it's not a crime. I was just suggesting that maybe, because of your solitary lifestyle you created this other life as a way to escape the realities of this one." She bit hit lower lip and studied him…his posture. "Maybe you picked up Carly on the street, or saw her walk by…she looked cute…you said hi, and asked her name…"

The doctor kept track of his every move. She actually looked like a scientist studying some new drug on a chimpanzee, but Sam was no chimp. "No."

"Are we reverting to the monosyllable answers again?" He didn't answer, but she knew that she had very few minutes to work with him left. The drugs that he had consumed with his food, didn't last a full hour. "We can talk a little about Lambert then. How did you meet Lambert?"

"I was in the CIA for a while and I didn't like the bureaucracy that I had to go through just to get some toilet paper to wipe my ass with. It was like trying to get an elephant to get its fat ass off a stack of documents that you needed. He knew I wanted out."

"Lambert had connections?"

"Through my wife and other agencies…Lambert had plenty of connections. He knew I was the best and that I would get the job done." Sam sat down on the terribly uncomfortable cot.

"Sometimes I wonder if my wife told them who I was. I'm sure she did. They could have gone through any number of records and picked out a lot younger men, but they singled out me. She must have pointed them in my direction."

"You said _was the best_. Does that mean that you don't feel like the best now?"

"I…don't know…I mean yes. Yes I am the best at what I do." Sam looked a little apprehensive.

"Do you feel betrayed by your wife in some ways? She did give you away...sort of pushed this at you."

"Not at all. This is the best gig I could have hoped for. I love the work. It did impede on our marriage, but if I had chosen another profession…I'm guessing I would have…"

"Been consumed by it?" She clicked the pen on the front of her tooth, before she wrote it all down. "So you feel it was your fault that your marriage went bust?"

"She could have stayed. It's not like I was cheating on her." He was watching his hands fold and unfold on his lap. "I would have stayed for her."

"So your wife got you into a situation she knew would swallow up all your time together and then pushed you away even further. She betrayed you in some small matter, by getting you this _dream job_ that ultimately ruined your marriage. It sounds to me like you've taken on quite a burden, Sam Fisher. To me it sounds like you've taken on the burden of a lot of things."

"It wasn't like that." He protested, but the words sounded weak, even to him.

"You took on the burden of raising a teenage daughter, after your wife died. That must have been tough for a man in your position. A bachelor, living alone, and now a father...I would say that was very tough. And on top of that, you had to continue working for the NSA. I would say that was extremely hard. You were thrust into the roll of being a parent to a rebellious teen and had to keep the fact that you worked in the espionage business a secret from the one's you loved." For someone trying to help him, her attitude sounded very accusing.

"I couldn't get them involved. They might get caught up in this mess." He defended himself. "I couldn't let her know because someone might try to use her knowledge against me. She was all I had left."

"Left of what? A broken marriage or a broken dream?"

"A broken heart."


	3. Drive Me Crazy

The next few days were much of the same. Sam would wake up and they would give him meals that consisted of foods that you didn't need a knife or fork to consume and then he would have a "chat" with the doctor. Mostly they touched on subjects like his home life with his daughter, but once in a while they would switch to work issues. Sam knew that she was weaving a complicated rug to get the information she needed, and not get him too suspicious. The fact was, he was very curious and extremely suspicious, but he didn't seem to be capable of stilling his tongue and suspected that they were drugging him somehow. He wanted to know what she continuously wrote in those notebooks that she kept so thoroughly. Most of the time, he felt like a totally different man in this altered new way of living. Nothing felt the same as it had before. He was beginning to actually dream real dreams and that disturbed him to no end.

She was peppering her questions about his life with his career at the moment. "Sam, I believe you said your daughter's name was Sara?"

"Yes." He washed down the last bite of food with a glass of water. He insisted on water, since it was the easiest liquid to determine if it had any drugs in it. There was no way to mask chemicals in water. "She lived with her mother until she was about sixteen."

"It took us a while, but I've come back with some news that you may not accept…at first." She waited until he was seated on the cot across from her again. Since the incident in the main room, Sam wasn't allowed to be in the weekly meetings with the rest of the group. Dr. Keith had taken over the main room and Dr. Zithers had devoted her full time to Sam, only allowing him time to sleep and a few hours of personal time. "I've delved pretty deeply into the files about your family and any possible relatives, but I've never come across anything about a wife or former wife. I can't find a marriage license, a birth certificate, or even a death certificate."

"She changed her name back to her maiden name, when we got divorced. I'm not surprised you didn't find her information." Sam was a bit surprised. Since they should have known about his wife's name reversal, he was slightly confused. "Was that all?"

"No." She consulted her clip board and notes, before looking back to Fisher, with a worried expression that made him fidget, like a kid caught in a lie. "There was a discrepancy in the information about your daughter. I've had my people look all over, but nobody came up with a Sara Fisher in any records file. No birth certificate, no college registration papers…nothing."

"There wouldn't be. Her name was changed into Burns."

"That's your wife's maiden name?"

They should have known that. In fact this entire conversation didn't make sense to him. "Yes. Of coarse."

"Sam, they don't alter names on birth certificates. Her name may have been changed to your wife's maiden name, but there would be some document claiming that you even had a daughter."

"You're a liar." Sam felt anger build up in him, so unlike himself…a volcano ready to erupt. "My wife died of cancer and my daughter came to live with me. I know my life. I'm telling you the truth." He sounded very agitated. "I'm Sam Fisher of the NSA Splinter Cell. I was married to Regan Burns and have a daughter, Sara Burns. I know several languages, including Arabic and Russian. I know martial arts, for Christ's sake! I can prove it." Sam hadn't heard from Lambert and hadn't been able to contact him with his sub dermal implant. Lambert must be wondering what had become of him. "I'll contact my superior. Colonel Irving Lambert?" He tried the implant again. "Lambert." Nothing. Maybe he was asleep? "Lambert, are you awake?" He tried again. Without any response. He didn't even get static. "It must be these walls."

The doctor steadily shook her head. "There is no Lambert, there is no wife, there is no daughter, and no NSA Third Echelon." It was incredible how credible she made herself sound. "Just because someone believes themselves to be Napoleon, doesn't make it so."

In a rush, he stood up. "I know the truth."

"Sam!" Dr. Zithers stood up and backed off, as he came forward. "I…I…I know you feel confused and upset right now…"

"I am far from upset." His breath fanned her cheek, he was so close. Sam backed her up into a corner, his eyes were livid. "I am beyond upset at this juncture." The truth was not here in this place, but she looked and sounded so convincing. He wasn't sure if it was the drugs or her tone that made him want to believe her. It hurt to think that maybe he was really in some make-believe world. "I want to know why you're doing this."

"I'm tired of this, Sam. I'm not doing anything to you, nobody is. We're trying to get you back to reality and you're fighting us the entire way there." She placed her hand on his chest and lightly pushed. "Please back up." Her voice held the slightest quiver, but he heard it.

He did take a step back, but it wasn't enough to get her the leverage she needed to get her back off of the wall. "Are you afraid of me?" He let his anger fall away, like so much melted snow.

"Don't make me call the orderly, Sam." She gained her composure and sidestepped him. Her fingers fiddled with the buttons at her collar. Dr. Zithers was intimidated by him. "Do you think that if you continue down this route that you'll get out of here? You're just digging yourself in deeper. Do you want to end up like the rest of these nuts…strung out on anti-psychotics…a vegetable? Because that's what's going to happen, if you don't…"

"Don't what?" Sam pressed the issue. "You keep asking me about my job at the NSA, but you haven't asked me about the people I work with, or the one's I've met. Why is that? The only one you've really grilled me on is my relationship with Carly."

She couldn't look at him. "I'm supposed to be asking you the questions. Please be seated." The doctor indicated the cot and Sam obliged her. "I shouldn't be telling you this, but I think you should know. Carly was picked up on the street three weeks ago. The police arrested her for prostitution. They couldn't put her in prison after her arraignment, because she was strung out on heroine. The judge had her sent here. She needed help not imprisonment. One might say she fried her brains on smack."

"That can't be possible." Sam shook his head vigorously. "She's a good kid."

"Look at me Sam." Dr. Zithers waited for him to comply. "Do I look like I'm telling a lie?"

"So many people have lied to me and they had a gun pushed to their temple." He looked away. Her face was unbearable to watch. Even with his experience at reading people, she looked truthful.

"What would I have to gain, by telling you lies?"

"I don't know." He spoke to the wall. "Can we talk about something else?" He sounded weary.

"Would you like to take a break and use the rest room now?"

Sam nodded. "I would like to get some real clothes, if that's at all possible."

"We'll see. That's a privilege you have to earn." She stood up and stretched.

"Like Carly's hat?" The doctor's face went blank. "How is a hat linked to prostitution?" Sam's teeth ground. "How is it that my imagination is so detailed?"

"I don't know, but we'll figure it out together and maybe, some day soon…you'll be back to living your own life."

Sam wasn't swayed. "On the outside?"

"Mmm hmmm." The orderly came back in and their conversation ended.


	4. Spiral Down To Crazy Town

"I have a new line of questions for you, since you've tired of the ones I've asked you before." Dr. Zithers was visibly shaken, but she kept her emotions in check by the thread of her professionalism. He hair was back in that tight knot at the back of her head, but it looked mussed, like someone had ran their fingers through it. She kept the tears locked away, although Sam could see them hovering on the rim of her eyelids. Something had scared her. "Mr. Fisher…"

"So we're back to being formal, are we?" Sam could sleep on any surface, including the truces of a busy highway underpass, but he could not sleep on this cot. He only slept in spurts and when he did sleep, it was full of nightmarish and ghoulish dreams. "OK, shoot doc. What do you want to ask today?"

"I see you didn't eat your meal today?" Her voice wavered, as she looked from Sam's untouched food to Sam. "I would like you to eat."

Sam whistled. "Is that your question? It isn't all that great. I'm not even sure that is a question." He was leaning against the wall near the door, one leg bent with his foot propped up on the wall behind him. "I wasn't exactly hungry."

"You should try to eat anyhow."

"It's not like I'm doing anything too strenuous. We're just chatting." He was feeling much more like himself today. It was definitely the food, he concluded by the expression on her face. After eating, he always felt a little light headed and very talkative…which he was not. Sure he was a little hungry right now, but he could handle it. "Maybe I'll eat something later." He lied. "Why don't you ask me what you really want to ask me?"

"Take a seat, Mr. Fisher." Dr. Zither's was not herself. Her face was cold hard marble and there were no smiles for him today. "We'll start with a simple question."

"OK."

"What are your parent's names?"

"Why do you need to know that? Weren't you sent in here to spy on the NSA?"

"Answer the question Fisher."

"Wow, I love being bossed around by a lady." He grinned. "It's kind of refreshing, after all the times I've been told what to do by Lambert. No offense, but you're a whole hell of a lot nicer looking than he is." She didn't even crack a smile at that. He thought she was quite rude calling him Fisher. He didn't have much to look forward to in this forced confinement and she was taking away her good-hearted temperament. "I'll tell you, although I'm sure you already know. Nathan and Diana Fisher." He stated.

"How was their relationship with each other?"

He shrugged. "Fine, I guess."

"You guess?"

"My mother left when I was seven or eight. My father never spoke of her again." There was no pain or detectable emotion in his voice. "My father died ten years ago. I never asked him about my mother."

She had forgotten her notes for a moment and was watching him. "Do you miss them?"

"I don't miss him."

"So, you don't miss your father, but do you miss your mother?"

"I don't remember anything about her, so how could I miss her? You can't miss something you don't remember having." Sam flicked a fleck of lint off of the blanket on the cot.

"Seven is kind of old to not remember anything about your mother. Aren't you the least bit curious to know what happened to your mom and why she left? You should remember something." Doctor Zithers inclined closer. She was attentive again and not just taking notes. "I bet if you try hard enough, you can remember some small shred of your mother."

"No."

"Try for me." Her hand skimmed over his. "Just try."

"I don't have to try. I don't remember a God Damn thing." Sam's face was ruddy with anger and his eye was twitching. "You're getting on my last nerve." Sam flipped her hand over, palm up and pressed his fingers to her wrist. She struggled, but his vice-like grip didn't allow for wiggle room. "Tell me what this is really about." 

"You're hurting me." The pressure was enough to bruise but not enough to do any real damage. "I don't know what you're talking about." She looked ready to panic. All her attention was on her wrists. She was trying to break free, without appearing to exert any energy.

"Why don't you contact the orderly?"

"I can't." The doctor's voice was slightly high pitched and whining.

"Why not?" This line of questioning sounded familiar to him and something clicked in his head. "You can't contact him without your hands freed."

"You're right, Sam." She composed herself to the best of her ability. "The pendent on my necklace...all of the doctors have them in case of emergency." Her head tilted and her face looked as indifferent as a porcelain mask. "Is this an emergency?" Sam felt as though she had used his given name as a way to become friendly with him again. "Sam?"

"No. That's not necessary. "Sam dropped her hands. "So Jerika, I can call you Jerika can't I?" He saw her flinch slightly. That was almost the exact wording she had used on him his first day here. "Tell me what I want to know."

"I have a theory that your problems with your so-called _marriage_, stem from your parent's relationship with you and with one another. Your mother left you when you were young and you never really got over that..." Dr. Zithers tried to move the subject on to him. "Your mother left, so in your mind your wife should leave you. I'm thinking that maybe, you're reenacting your parent's strife."

"There you go again. Ypu're a very fickle woman. You know that's not what I mean." His voice held a hint of anger and a touch of laughter. Sam was not happy, but he was flabbergasted at her naive attitude. "I'm surprised at your commitment to your role. You're very good."

That cracked her. "Sam, please..." Dr. Jerika Zithers was pleading with her eyes. "I didn't want to..." She threw herself at him, pressing her lips to his in a tumultuous, one-sided kiss. Sam didn't respond to her touch, not that his body didn't respond, but that he mentally shut off that section of himself. She gripped his forearms, tightly latching on to him like he was a life preserver on choppy waters. "Sam." Her whisper mingled with his own breath. Tears tainted her lips as she forced another kiss on him. "Kiss me, Sam. Love me like a woman." Her actions were nearly insane now. "I know you have love in you."

Sam Fisher was a man and with her luscious body pressed against him, he felt like throwing her on the cold concrete and ravishing her right there, but he pushed such thoughts out of his head. "Who do you work for? What information were you trying to get from me, Doctor?"

"Jerika! Call me Jerika." She fumbled with the ties on his pajama bottoms, but only managed to tie them into a tight knot, that could only be cut loose. He stood up quickly and pushed her hands away from him. She actually ripped her blouse open and shoved her breasts in his line of vision. "I love you."

"Bullshit." He held her wrists captive, so she couldn't get so close to him. She would have a nice matching set of bruise bracelets. "Who put you up to this?"

"I'm an awful human being, Mr. Fisher." Her head slumped forward, knowing defeat and shame. "I've kept you drugged this whole time, to get information for my boss."

"What kind of information? What did you tell them?"

"I told them nothing. I took notes, like I was supposed to, but I never turned in any of it." She sobbed. "I swear it. I was supposed to ask you about the people you work with...other agents of the NSA."

"I don't know any of the other NSA agents. I've never met a single one of them. I work alone." Sam held both of her wrists in one fist and lifted her chin with his free hand. "I don't have any information, other than what Lambert tells me." Tears dripped down her chin and he felt a fleeting moment of pity for her. "If I knew any of the other agents, I wouldn't know anything more than their names. I wouldn't know anything about their missions or whereabouts. They don't know anything more than that about me and you can tell that to whatever organization you work for."

"When they realized that Carly had very little information about the Third Echelon, they had you brought in. Your contact was replaced by our own man." She sniffed and blew a strand of hair out of her eyes. "You're the only agent we had any information on, since Carly seems to like you a whole lot. Everything I knew of you, was because of that kid."

"Why would you go through with this elaborate trap and not follow through with it?" He pinched her chin in a painful hold. "Tell me something that isn't a lie."

"We knew about Lambert, but we couldn't get a hold of him." Her eyes met his briefly. "Carly St. John goes to school with my cousin. My cousin helped her study for a final exam and I guess her books got left behind in his dorm room. The silly girl had a bookmark page with letterhead from the NSA. It was easy enough to get information out of her. A whopping dose of lies and barbiturates, can work any tongue loose." Sam let her go and she sat back down in the chair. It was like being a third party listener in a church confessional. "She didn't know what hit her, once I had a hold of her." Dr. Zithers laughed and cried at the same time. "My cousin informed me of what he had seen and my boss had her picked up, after I relayed the data to him. Do you know, that Carly thinks of this as a kind of game and that it's a sort of stepping stone to what she really wants to do? This isn't a permanent career for her."

"She told you about me, but that still doesn't tell me why you didn't turn me in to your superiors." Sam picked her up by the shoulders and shook her. "Well?"

"She likes you a lot, Sam." Jerika slipped out of his grip and slithered to the floor. "I think I more than like you, Mr. Fisher." She whimpered, groveling at his feet. "You're right though. She's way too young for you, but I'm not. I'm not too young for you, Sam!" The doctor threw herself at his ankles, sobbing. "I've never been with a man. You can be my first."

He bent down and picked her up again, so she was standing on her own two feet. "Get up."

"I..." Hiccup! "I never loved anyone." Hiccup! "I don't..." Hiccup! "Don't want to die a virgin." Jerika threw her arms around his middle and buried her face in his chest. "They'll kill us both, now." She hiccupped a few more times, but eventually caught her breath. "Do you know what it's like to work in a mental institute practically your entire life?"

Sam didn't know, but he could guess by his brief stint at the institution, what it was doing to her. "I have an inkling."

"Are you going to kill me now?" Her voice was steady and she was resigned to her fate. "I'm as good as dead as it is. I rather you do it. I'm sure you're very efficient and painless compared to what they'll do to me." She trembled like the last autumn leaf on a tree.

Sam's heart reached out to her, but he had to get out of here. He couldn't take her with him and he couldn't leave her here. "That orderly heard many of our conversations."

"He's deaf. He couldn't tell anyone anything of what we said."

"Deaf? But, he knew what I was saying the other day, when he took me to the restroom."

"He reads lips, but I assure you that he knows nothing. My notes were always with me or locked in my desk drawer." Her head was resting on his chest, listening to the rhythmic thumping of his chest. "I'm the only one who knows anything of what you told me and you didn't tell me anything more than what we already knew. Any personal information will be of no use to my overseer."

"Where is my OPSAT and other gear?"

She looked like she might burst into tears at the thought of his leaving, or maybe it was the thought of dying. "In my office."

"Where's your office?"

"I'll take you to it. I'm the only one who can open the door."

She's a very pretty woman. Sam admitted to himself. "One last request." Sam led her to the door. She waited for him to ask what he wanted. "Let's stop by the john. I really have to go."


	5. Fugitive From Duty

They left the room together and headed straight to the restroom. The orderly, James, wasn't just outside the door, like Sam had suspected. Sam finished his business and they continued down the hall, past the common room, through several security checks, and made their way past two other offices, before they came to hers. Obviously, she was the head of staff, because of the size of the double doors that marked her office. The whole time, Sam was busy remembering exits, camera positions, and potential hindrances. A camera over the door beeps and lets them in. Apparently the camera had scanned her and read her vital signs in a matter of seconds, before it verified her identity and unlocked the door.

"Very clever." Sam tried to compliment her, but she just ignored him.

"You're uniform is in my closet." Dr. Zithers tossed him the key and sat in the overstuffed, leather chair behind the desk. "I suppose you'll want to take Ms. St. John?"

"Of coarse." Sam opened the closet and let out a pent up breath. His uniform, OPSAT, and weapons were all neatly stacked in the closet. "Where can I find her?"

"You wouldn't consider taking me with you?" The doctor handed him a stack of well organized notebooks, before she told him that Carly was in the West wing of the compound and that she was heavily guarded. "She's in room C27."

"I see." He stripped off his pajama tops and bottoms. "You don't mind my dressing in here?" She shook her head, biting her fingernails in the process. "I guess not."

"Do you need any help?" She fiddled with a pen on her desk, trying not to look interested in watching him dress.

"I should be able to manage getting this on." The Kevlar enhanced, super-hero suit went on easily, even though Sam felt like he was out of shape.

"No, I meant getting out of here." This time she looked directly at him. "If you are caught, they'll shoot you for sure."

"And they won't shoot you for helping Carly and I escape?" He packed the journals in his Osprey. Usually it was just for a few pieces of street clothes, or extra equipment. "Or don't you care?"

"It's my life. I could have chosen another profession." She remarked flippantly. "I knew it wouldn't last forever. Besides, a quick shot to the head would be the least of my worries if they catch me helping you."

"Where's that big lout?" Sam asked, referring to James the orderly.

"James? I don't know. He shouldn't be a bother though. Not for you anyhow."

Sam checked his OPSAT. He looked quite heroic with his black, mesh uniform on. The Five-seveN was unloaded and SC-20K was still loaded with sticky cams. They were stuck. He yanked on them really hard, but they didn't budge. Well, that's why they called them sticky. Loading the Five-seveN, he slung the SC-20K over his shoulder.

"I need to get gone. What time is it?"

"Ten forty-three P.M.." Dr. Zithers stood up and buttoned her blouse with one hand, while smoothing her hair with the other hand. When she was done, she sauntered over to Sam. Her hand reached out to take his night-vision goggles and put them on for him. Her fingers lingered in his hair. She took a minute to look him over. "Perfect, Mr. Fisher." She leaned in, pressing her body full length against his and gave him a tender kiss. Sam didn't know how to react, so he just stood there with his arms at his side. She doesn't seem to notice his lack of participation. "Lets go, Sam."

"I'm sorry." His heart felt heavy in his chest.

"Sorry for what?" She's oblivious, so he dropped the subject all together. "I don't see anyone, but they'll be doing bed checks at eleven." They scurried past the camera.

"Eventually, they'll know I'm gone. They'll come after you." Sam tugged on her hand. A guard walked by and he pulled her into the shadows. "Are you sure that you want to go through with this?" Jerika ignored him again. "Time to get down to business."

Dr. Jerika Zithers, the woman who had held him captive, didn't know what hit her. Sam brought the edge of his palm down on the back of her neck hard enough to knock her out, but not kill her. She collapsed with a muffled whimper, like all her bones had been suddenly ripped from her body and no linger there to support her. Sam got a hold of her just before she hit the floor and thwacked her head on the floor. She would awaken with a minor headache, but he couldn't help that. It would be better than being shot for conspiring with the enemy. He arranged her demurely, so she was a comfortable position. Her hair had some loose from the rubber-band and was draped across her face like a veil. Sam had only a few minutes to rescue Carly and get out of there, but he used a split second of one, to brush her hair out of her face. After all these years of working in the mental institute, she had succumbed to her surrounding and had become as much a prisoner there as the inmates. They would find her and assume that he had knocked her out, if things went like they should.

The West wing was separated from the main building by a long hall that slanted down at a sharp angle. It was lit up like mid-day down there and had a camera at either end. It would be like walking up a muddy embankment on his way back through here with Carly. Taking out the cameras was easy enough to do with his Five-seveN. He had, maybe, twenty minutes to work with, before they would discover his departure. It would take five to ten minutes to get to his room during their routine bed checks and after that, the building would be swarming with guards, doctors, and orderlies.

He hurried down the hall, after shooting out the cameras, and swiftly ducked around the corner. This area was shadowed, except for a stream of light that spilled form under the door of the room on his left. Sam took out his optic cable and slipped it under the door. There were two guards watching a set of small TVs that showed a black and white live feed from several surveillance cams. One of the guards had his feet on the desk, his arms acting as supports for his head, while he dozed. The second guard was also relaxed, but he was watching one of the little TVs with rapt attention. He laughed raucously, waking the other guard, who shouted at him to be quiet.

"Hey, this is funny." The laughter was still in his voice. He turned to the sleepy-eyed guard and slapped him good good-naturedly on the back. "Don't be such a grump."

"Turn the station back." The previously sleeping guard grumbled. "We're supposed to be working."

The first guard snorted. "All right mate, but I'm telling you...those loonies aren't doing anything but sleeping."

"Yeah, well I wish I could be them right now. I hate the night shift."

The station was switched back to the surveillance channel and both men stared at the screen. "Snow?" Both guards looked at the screen and then at each other, dumbfounded. "Camera must be on the blink...go check the cam." The older fellow said.

"Me! Why do I have to go do it? I did it last time." The second guard complained. "It's your turn to fix it."

"I outrank you. I'm the senior officer on duty." The first guard flipped the station on another TV to another camera. Both TVs shown static. "Shit. This whole place has gone down the crapper." Something must have clicked in their thick skulls, because they both ran towards the door and Sam had to dodge out of the way as they flung open the door, and bolted down the hallway.

Sam worked his way down the narrow passage to Carly's cell. His eyes felt un-natural, looking through the night vision and thermal vision. He checked for any laser sensor traps or light beam triggers, that might set off any alarms. The one cell and the guard room seemed to be the only rooms in the West wing. Sam knew that these small rooms couldn't take up the immense allotted area that the blueprints suggested was here. There would have to be a passageway or secret room, that he couldn't see from this corridor. He pressed the key-card to the locks on Carly's prison and the light flashed over the bar-code and blinked green. The latch clicked and he swung the door open, cautiously listening for any squeaking hinges. His night vision was switched on once more. Carly was sleeping fitfully on the cot. She was curled up on her side in a fetal position, alternately moaning and whimpering. Sam closed the door, but kept it from latching shut, by wedging a slipper in the jam.

"Carly." Sam shook her, but she didn't come out of her drug induced sleep. Shaking her more forcefully, he tried to wake her up again. "Wake up." Her head looked like it was on a slinky. "It's time to go, Carly." Her slapped her across the cheek. "Carly St. John!" He demanded that she awaken, like an army sergeant barking at a new recruit.

Carly's eyes popped open and snapped shut again. Squinting, she focused on him, although the lack of light made it nearly impossible for her to see him in his uniform. "Who are you...I know you, don't I?" Her words were slurred.

"Carly, it's me...Sam Fisher." He was no doctor, but he knew when somebody had been doped up. Sam took out the penlight from his OPSAT and shined it in her eyes. She cringed back from the light, but he held her still with a hand on the nape of her neck. "Your pupils are dilated."

"Sam?" Carly rubbed her forehead. "You can't be Sam. He's not real. They told me so." She was confused. "Or, he's dead. I can't remember anymore." She began crying and repeating that he wasn't there. "You're not here. You're a part of my imagination. I'm just tired. I need more sleep." She went to lay back down and Sam stopped her decent.

He needed her to snap out of this crazy ranting quick. He tried to get her attention the only way he knew how. Shaking her, he called her name. "Carly St. John!"


	6. Trip No Wires

"Listen, Carly...you can cry all you want once we get out of here." They didn't have time for hysterics. "Come on, we're out of here."

"You got shot. I saw you go down."

It dawned on him that she had seen him being shot with the tranquilizer rifle. She continued sobbing and he gave her a quick hug. "You're fine and I'm fine. We're going to all be OK, but I need you to focus." In her confused state, she could do something that might jeopardize their getting out of there. "Can you do that for me? Do you think you can focus on the situation and help me get us out of here?"

She looked at him like a puppy that didn't know any English. Her eyes continued to leak water, although she was no longer making any crying noises, that might alert the guards. "I can't leave here with you. You're just a paranoid illusion brought on by lack of sleep."

"You want to sleep?" Sam paused for just a moment, before he thought of what he needed to do next. "Sorry, but I don't have time to explain." He struck her at the base of her neck and she collapsed into his waiting arms. "Right now, I don't think you would get it, even if I took the time."

Carrying her fireman style, he appreciated her lightness compared to the others he had lugged around on the job. Of coarse, he hadn't had to lug them around as far as her, but she was comparatively easier to handle. There was only one way in and out of the West wing and that was the way he had come in. They passed the guard room undetected.

Both guards were still arguing about the cameras in the sloped, and brightly illuminated hallway. They were facing the camera on the far wall, over the exit and pointing at the Five-seveN hole in the side of the camera's casing. Neither of them knew what had caused the short in the wiring, but they knew it had to do with that strange hole. Both men were facing away from him, which would be to his advantage, if he was going to get them out of the way and stop them from blocking his escape. If his Sc-20 hadn't been jammed, he might have been able to bounce a couple sticky shockers or air-ring foils off of their heads, but as it was, he would just have to race up behind them and knock them senseless. He laid Carly down and maneuvered himself into a comfortable spot from which to attack. Even with all the lighting and slippery slope, neither of them spotted him, until he was an arms length away from them.

"What...who?" He clanked their heads together like a couple of ripe melons, smashed one man in the face with the butt of his SC-20, slammed a foot into the ankle of the second, breaking the bones, and took them both down with a few quick kicks to the groin and a jab to the esophagus, that paralyzed their breathing and dropped them to the ground out cold.

He gathered Carly in his arms again and hustled out into the main hall and off towards the front exit. He knew from Dr. Zithers' information and the blue prints he had glanced through, that this exit had a guard shack and a camera, but the back exit had a camera, a guard, and a massive twenty foot fence that had razor wire around the top just in case. Sam was in no mood to try and hoist an unconscious woman over a towering fence and then get cut to shreds trying to shimmy past some wire. It was hard enough to do it on his own, but to have some woman slung over his shoulder like Tarzan? The front door did have an alarm, but it had to be manually triggered by the guards and he could handle them. Sam didn't bother with the cameras this time, since he was in a hurry. His rescue mission no longer called for stealth, just a quick departure. Hitching Carly's limp body up more securely, he sprinted through the double doors that led to his freedom.

It was a moonless night, yet the stars seemed to be overcompensating for the lack of moonlight. It was lucky for him, that the guards had such meager lighting to work with and that he had the advantage with his night vision, which he switched on. There was a single streetlight handing over the very end of the driveway and Sam couldn't shoot it out without gaining a lot of attention, so he did the next best thing. He let Carly rest on the ground and worked his way stealthily, to the rear of the guard shack, where he saw his golden opportunity. The rear of the shack had a window and that window was propped open enough for him to get his hand in there, or better yet, a grenade. He set the CS grenade on a ten second delay and got the hell out of there. He had seen that both men had been armed with machine guns and he found that extremely strange for mental institute. Were they there to guard the patients or shoot them? he hadn't seen anything more than a nightstick on the guards inside the hospital, but these guards looked ready for more than battling crazies.

The grenade went off and gas filled the lungs of the two guards. One man tried desperately to get out, by knocking the door down, but it was too late. He fell face down on the door he had just broken and lay as motionless as a lump of coal. Drool pooled from his open mouth and his partner was slumped over a computer with a keyboard as a headrest. The weight of his head was depressing the keys and the screen read 6jjowhajljlaf over and over, filling the page.

Sam took a moment to knock the unconscious man out of his seat and scroll up to the top of the screen to read what the man had been typing. "To the housekeeper: Fishing trip cut short. Fish not biting. Need house cleaned before departure..." It got cut off there and Sam hurried to take a picture of the message with his OPSAT and went back out to get Carly, to find that she was sitting up. She was rubbing her head and staring at him like she had seen a long lost friend.

"Sam! Let's get out of this place." Carly was up before Sam could reach her and her hand grasped his, as she nearly ran past him. "I knew you would come for me."

"No time for chit chat Charlie Brown." Sam quipped and whisked her off into the world.

"Where are we going?"

"Away." He replied.

They were still running, when Sam heard a familiar sound, that confirmed his sanity and made him smile. "Fisher. Come in Fisher."

"Lambert." His free hand went to the implant in his throat, like metal to a magnet. "It's good to hear your voice again, Colonel."

"God damn it, Sam! Where the fuck have you been?" Lambert rarely cursed and it was even more rare for him to bring God into it. "I've been trying to contact you for more than a week."

"Sorry Colonel. I was a little tied up and things were kind of crazy, but I'm better now." Sam slowed to a quick trot and allowed Carly to have her hand back. "Our little problem in Ecuador get solved?"

"I had sent someone else, since you were no longer available. We had a few glitches come our way."

"What was that?"

"Our contact went sour. He was working for both sides of the equation and threw a few bugs into the system. If Carly had been here, we could have had them fixed sooner, but we had our entire team working overtime." Lambert had more bad news, if the tone of his voice was any indication. "I have more bad news."

"Don't keep me in suspense Colonel." Carly and Sam were resting some distance away from the institute. He could barely see the glow of the streetlight that hung over the driveway.

Lambert cleared his throat and Sam felt the need to clean his ear. "A few of our agents are MIA"

"Dead?" Sam had his thermal vision on and was trying to scope out any people that might have followed them.

"Possibly, but we haven't gotten any reports of bodies being found. Nobody has been able to contact them. And there is more...Carly St. John is on that list. She's been missing for three weeks and her parents are getting anxious. I'm not sure what I should tell them."

Sam stopped him from babbling too much. "I have Carly with me."

"You're a friggin miracle worker, Sam. I don't know how you managed it, but good work." Lambert sighed heavily. It was obvious to Sam, that everyone had a special place for Carly, including Sam. "Tell me where you are and I'll have a transport pick you guys up."

"That's a slight problem, Colonel. I'm not sure where we are. The only information I can give is that we're definitely in the united states, probably in the Midwest by their accents, and I passed a sign that said Institute for the Criminally Insane."

"Jesus, Sam! I'll have to have more information than that." Lambert grumbled. "I'lll have to pull an allnighter and get the entire team to look into possible locations, based on the information you provided. Anything else?"

"Yes. Take a look at this." Sam took out his OPSAT and sent Lambert a picture of Dr. Zithers. "She works at the institute as the chief of staff. Find out what you can about her employer."

"Good. That should give us a lead on where you are. Until then, I want you to sit tight and I'll call in the day crew." Colonel Lambert signed off.

Sam switched his attention to Carly. "I have a change of clothes in my Osprey, if you don't mind them being wrinkled and entirely too large for you?"

"As long as they're warm, anything would be better than a hospital gown." She took the clothes he offered her and slipped them on over her pajamas. "You wouldn't happen to have a pair of shoes stowed away in there? My feet are as cold as ice."

"No, but I have some spare socks." Sam dug through his Osprey and handed Carly the only pair of socks. She took them without comment, although they were huge, white gym socks, that went past her knees. On him, they only came up to the middle of his calf. "I'm sorry that they're so big."

She sat down next to him. "They're fine Sam. I'm just glad to be warm."

Sam Fisher, who was never much good at expressing his feelings, had apologized to two separate women in one day. Dr. Zithers might have said he was making progress with his therapy, had he not knocked her unconscious. "Go ahead and lean on me, if you're tired. I'll stay up and keep watch."

"Really?" Carly rested her head on his shoulder, when he gave her the affirmative. "You're not as bad a guy as you want people to think, Fisher."

"When you wake up, we should be going. We're not far enough from that place to suit me." He put an arm around her, to keep her from sliding sideways as she slept.

"Maybe you should sleep and I can keep watch?"

"No. You sleep." He felt her body relax against him and knew that she was already sleeping. "I can't sleep anymore."


	7. Grave Lies

Sam didn't know when he had fallen asleep, or when he had slept so well, but he knew what had woke him up. Carly was curled up on the ground, her head resting comfortably in his lap. A twig snapped and his attention was drawn away from the deep even breathing of the sleeping woman to thirty feet from them, on his right. His ears perked like a skunk searching for grubs beneath the soil. Leaves rustled overhead, but there was no breeze. He had removed his goggles earlier, so he put them back on. Night vision showed nothing. He switched them to thermal vision and gently extracted himself as Carly's pillow and double-checked his Five-seveN. A thermal pattern was visible through the dense foliage. He kept his pistol trained on the intruder, switched back to night vision, but it turned out to be nothing more than a deer. He turned his scope on and scanned the trees above, but the only thing he saw was an owl chasing a bat through the treetops.

Sam left their temporary camp to walk the perimeter once more, before settling down. He got up and stretched wearily, rubbing the back of his neck. His bones cracked like a grandparent hefting a husky grandchild. This past week had dragged on his mind and spirit, yet his body had taken the brunt of it. The metal cot had been the worst part of this whole experience. Dr. Zither's attempts at breaking him had been almost comical. She hadn't been wholeheartedly into the project and he could tell that from the beginning. He had guessed the strain of her job had finely cracked her glossy exterior. She had proclaimed her love to him and he hadn't shunned her, but he had shunned the thought of her possibly actually loving him.

Sam Fisher was not a man to be loved. His wife had shown him that. Regan Burns had even told him that on the few times he had actually been home long enough for them to have any sort of discussion past the niceties of stranger on a bus. Their last argument had gone on for two weeks, until Regan had finely exploded.

Regan sat in her chair, doing a crossword and watching Jeopardy at the same time. It was her favorite pastime. She would guess the answers to the crossword and fill in the blanks, while answering Alex Trebec in the form of a question. That night she had been holding the remote in one hand and an open book, filled with crossword puzzles, was propped open on her knees. She was silent though. She didn't blurt out answers and her pen was still sitting on the coffee table beside her. Sam came home, not even realizing the lateness of his arrival, or that Regan had been stewing in her own angry malcontent since he had said something about her quitting the NSA two weeks earlier. According to her, as her husband, Sam should be supportive of her decision to work and not put her in an apron in front of a hot stove. Sam had just suggested that, since she had looked so peeked the last few weeks, that she might want to take some time off from the NSA and go on a long leave. To Regan, that meant just being a good little wife and mother and she wouldn't be content with _just_ being anything. She wanted a career of her own and the ability to follow through with any options she might want to take up.

"Well, look what the cat dragged in." Regan glanced at him sideways. "I know that's an awful cliché, but its as good as I could come up with at this time of night."

"I'm sorry _honey_, I'll try to be more considerate of the time, while I'm out saving the world. Should I call up Lambert and tell him to tell the terrorists, that my wife only wants me to work between the hours of nine and five?" Sam tossed his Osprey on the bed and came back into the kitchen to riffle through the refrigerator. It was empty. "You could have at least bought some milk, _dear_." He had a little anger stored up himself and was letting it show through his, usually, unruffled surface.

"Oh? Are we out of milk, _Pooky_?" When had pet names become so volatile? "Maybe the big strong NSA spy should have picked some up on the way home from work and saved his _dear_ wife a trip to town, since he took the only car to work again and she didn't have any change for the bus."

"I have to work Regan. What's wrong with your car?" Sam mumbled past a mouthful of cheese and stale crackers he was trying to choke down, that he had found in the cupboard. "It works, doesn't it?" He flopped down on the couch.

"No and you would have known that, had you paid any attention to me in the last two weeks, when I told you that the fuel gasket had to be replaced and the timing belt was shot. I have to work too you know and I have other obligations. I have Sara to raise, practically by myself. I have PTA meetings, clarinet lessons, shopping to do, and doctor appointments to go to. Do you even know that Sara needs braces on her teeth, or that she was picked to be the angle in the school's Christmas Pageant?"

Sam looked genuinely shocked and dismayed at missing so much of his daughter's life. Sara barely knew who he was and he would be surprised if she knew she even had a father. Most of his time was spent at work and when he was home, which wasn't that often, Sara was either at school or asleep. He was ashamed, until Regan started harping on him again. At the time he had been feeling abused by Regan's harsh words, but had he known she why she was really upset, he would have forgiven her.

"I doubt you even know her birthday. You're so caught up in yourself and your work, that you don't have time for a family. I'm beginning to think that you don't even know what a family is for and I'm tired of trying to love someone who doesn't love me back."

"I'm just a piece of cardboard, is that it? I have no feelings?" Sam stood up and strode towards the door. The cheese sat in his gut like a lump.

Regan stayed seated. Her lips were drawn and her eyes were pitiless. "Oh, I think you have feelings, but just not for me. Not anymore. The honeymoon is over and our marriage is well past the expiration date."


	8. Hide The Pain

"Fine." Sam didn't look back as he opened the door to leave. "I'll pick up my things in the morning."

"Don't bother, Sam. I've already packed." She was standing right beside the door as he walked out wordlessly and closed the door behind him.

Regan took Sara and moved back to America the next morning, as though nothing more needed to be said between them. Sara had still been asleep, when they boarded the plane to New York. Regan looked worn and strained, but she kept her head up like a soldier going into battle. Sara only woke long enough to see her daddy wave at their departing Taxi and ask her mommy who that sad looking man was and then went back to sleep. Regan hadn't cried when the doctor told her that she had cancer, but she cried then. Her daughter didn't even recognize her own father.

Sam hadn't known that Regan had left to save him the pain of seeing her die a slow and miserable death. Regan knew though, that even with treatment and chemotherapy, she wouldn't live long enough to see her daughter graduate high school. That was why, when she was hanging on to the last threads of life, she had contacted Sam and had him visit her in the hospital. Sara never knew about that visit.

"It's good to see you." Regan said from her hospital bed. Her face was pale, like all the blood had drained out of her body. "You look good, but then you always were at the top of your game."

"This isn't what I came here for. What is it that you really want?" Sam masked no hidden emotions. He felt detached from his body, like he was on the outside looking in. His voice worked of it's own accord. "Lambert pulled me out Thailand to come here."

"He must have thought it was urgent to do that." She held out her hand, silently pleading for him to take it. "Thailand can wait, if Lambert thinks it more important for you to be here, than there. Take my hand, Sam." Her fingers looked like porcelain claws off of a harpy statue and Sam had no compunction to hold those hands again. "Sam..…" He took her cold and clammy fingers in his rough and warm hand, but didn't dare look at her. "I'm dieing."

"I know." Sam stared hard at her fingernails, keeping himself inert from the pain that wrenched at his insides. "Lambert briefed me on the situation a month ago. He told me that you've known for quite some time and didn't tell anyone…..that you had cancer."

"I've known since that day…..you know the one I'm talking about." Her voice was filled with tears, but she coughed to cover her emotions. Even now, Regan was trying to be brave and hide her weakness. "The doctors told me that it was well past operable by the time I saw the first warning signs, but they told me that medication and chemotherapy might put it into remission. At least for a while, it looked like it would work…"

"Why didn't you stay with me? I could have taken care of you while you were sick."

"Taken me to the countless appointments with doctors and specialists and chemo sessions? Watched as all my hair fell out and I threw up night and day?"

"I could have held your hand while you waited for test results. I could have helped any way possible, but you didn't stick around, or even tell me." Sam felt her shiver and gave her hand a gentle squeeze. "I thought you loved me."

"I would spare you that discomfort, Sam." Regan gasped in pain and clutched at the only contact with him he allowed. Tears welled up in her eyes and escaped her tightly shut lids. Her hair was plastered to her forehead with sweat and Sam felt her strength being sapped away. "I do love you and that is why I left you. You are not a man to be loved. You are a man to be admired from afar…one of real courage and I needed you to stay that way. I don't want to leave this world knowing you're pity." Regan stiffened, her teeth biting through her lower lip as she held back a pained scream.

Sam grabbed her hands with both of his and fell to his knees at the side of her bed. "You can yell all you want. I'm here." He didn't want to let her hands go, but her lip was bleeding and he went to wipe the blood from her trembling chin. "I wouldn't pity you for being sick, but I do for you not trusting me enough to be there for you."

"You would have quit the NSA and come to play nurse to your dieing wife? Missed all that high adventure…"

He cut her off with an angry glare. "That's a load of crap and you know it."

"To tell you the truth…..I didn't know what you would do, but I did know that I was going to die and that I didn't want to put you through all that. I've outlived every expectation ever put on me by any of the doctors I've seen and I've seen quite a few. I'm thirsty." He grabbed the plastic cup that was full of half melted ice chips and raised it to her lips. She sipped the cooling water and laid her head back down. "I only asked you here, so I could ask you to do something for me when I'm gone."

"Anything. What is it?" Sam felt her hand relax in his and he looked at her face to see her smile almost like the angelic smile she had for him on their wedding day, but much paler.

"Take care of Sara for me? She still has a lot of growing up to do."

"You didn't need to ask me that. You know I would do anything for my daughter."

"I just need to know it. Be there for her, Sam. I mean truly be there for her. Listen to her when she talks and try to be a father to her. Show up at a school play or two and try to show interest in what she does, although it may seem juvenile to you in your world. Those sort of things really matter to a girl her age." Rending pain lanced through her body and racked her soul to breaking point. "SAM!" Regan's eyes went wide with terror and then she calmed and looked at him with heartfelt apology in her watery vision. "I'm sorry." She whispered and went still.

The monitor over her bed blared in his ears…..her death knoll a long, high-pitched tone. Her hand was limp in his, yet he held it tightly in his, as though holding on to that would keep the last vestiges of her life from slipping away. A doctor came into the room, with his nurse trailing on his heals. They worked around him, silently checking her pulse, knowing he wouldn't find any and closed the dead woman's eyes. They had known this day was coming for many a month and were not surprised by her passing. The machine was switched off and everything was quiet once more.

"Nurse mark the time of death." They turned to him, as though just noticing his presence. "I'm sure you want some time alone with her."

"No. I'm through here." Sam cleared his head and strode out of the room. "Where is my daughter?"

The doctor looked pointedly at the nurse and then caught up with Sam at the exit. "Regan never allowed Sara to come to the hospital, so I'm sure she's at school today."

Sam went out to his land rover and climbed in behind the wheel. Realizing that he had no idea where Sara went to school or the name of her teacher, he flipped open a portable rolodex and thumbed through a few names and addresses, finding nothing with Sara's school information on it. He gave up trying to remember the school's phone number and dialed work.

A secretary he didn't know the name of, but he knew she baked cookies for the staff on Christmas, answered. "Hello, Mr. Fisher. Please dial your code and I'll connect you to the right line." Sometimes it unnerved him, when they answered the phone already knowing who he was and not even having caller ID installed. "Thank you. I'll have your contact in a jiffy. Please hold."

Sam thought it might have been easier to contact Lambert through his implant, yet he couldn't bring himself to use it on a non-emergency. Besides, it wasn't supposed to be used unless it was for official business. He grimaced at his reflection in the rearview mirror and listened to the Kenny G melody playing while he was on hold. He knew that all his conversations were being monitored and recorded, so he kept as quiet as possible, trying to hear the other person on the line breath. His natural curiosity had him almost blue in the face, breathing so shallow and slow…click…

"Sam? This is Lambert." Sam almost laughed at the way Lambert always answered the phone as though he weren't sure whom he was speaking to and that he always gave Sam's name a little question mark. "I heard the news. I'm sorry for your loss. If there is anything I can do…"

"Thanks, but all I need is a little information."


	9. Bad Vibes

"Are you awake yet, Dr. Zithers?" A rough and ill-used voice floated to her sleep muffled ears. "Turn on the light, so the good doctor may see."

"Where…" A blinding light blazed to life like a lightning strike, making her squint into the darkness that marked the circle of her newfound existence. "Where am I?" She finished. Her legs and arms didn't move when she willed them to and her head felt light someone had jack hammered on the back of it. "Why am I tied to this chair?"

"The questions you ask, although very relevant, are not the first questions I would be asking." The voice was harsh like the person behind it had drank and smoked their entire life and had done irretrievable damage to their throat, which they likely had. A puff of smoke went up into the air, the burning tip of a lit cigarette could be seen in the dark, but nothing of the man smoking it. "The question I would be asking is, what are you gong to do to me? Now I know that you're disoriented and confused about what happened, but I can't fill you in on any of that. Since I'm new here, why don't you fill me in on the events leading up to now?"

"Who are you? What have I done wrong to be treated like this?" Jerika tested the twine around her wrists and tried to stretch the bindings on her ankles. "I'm just a doctor…"

"Doctor of what? Psychiatry or a medical doctor?" The cigarette was stamped out on the floor, only to be replaced by another one. A brief flick of a lighter could be seen. "From what I've seen…and it isn't much…I haven't seen any kind of doctoring out of you lately."

"Psychiatry, of course." Jerika's voice sounded steady and sure, but her words felt hollow on her lips. She didn't feel like herself. Her eyes were downcast and her hair was messy around her shoulders. Nothing was organized and even her buttons on her blouse were askew. Feeling a bit peeved and angry, Jerika shouted. "I've worked at this fucking institute for over ten years and I've never once asked for a god damn vacation."

"A vacation? That can be arranged." Jerika heard the person chuckle. A door opened and closed and her interrogator spoke with a second unknown character for a few seconds. The second person left without a word to her. All the while, Jerika worked on stretching the twine binding her legs and hands to the chair. "I wouldn't do that, if I were you." A stream of smoke poured out of the strangers nostrils and into the light, but she couldn't make out any part of the strangers face.

"Do what?" Jerika gritted her teeth and tried to make it look like a gullible smile, but the twine was biting into the tender flesh of her wrists, making sticky trails of blood. "I'm not doing anything."

"I wouldn't struggle so much. I can tell by your face, that the rope is cutting off the circulation to your hands."

"What do you mean?" Jerika let out a heavy sigh.

"That twine is rather unremarkable, yet if tied the way I've tied it…any person trying to loosen it by struggling, only manages to tighten it further. That cuts off the blood to the hands and feet and eventually causes them to fall asleep and sometimes even cut into their skin, which can be quite unpleasant for you and myself when I have to cut the rope off. Besides, there is no knowing when or if I'll check to see if they're loose enough and you may just have struggled your way into cutting the blood supply off completely and I may have to amputate. But of course, you understand…blood poisoning and all."

Jerika stopped moving altogether and almost stopped breathing, but she felt the darkness creeping in and fought to keep her wits about her. "So, what do you want to know?"

"I normally ask the questions around here." The abrasive voice barked.

"Sorry."

"You're forgiven, since you're new to this." The voice said in cool detachment and stomped out the second cigarette butt in the same fashion as the first. "Would you like a drink?"

"I don't drink."

"Not even water? What a pity." The voice carried a trace of mirth and malice. "I'll leave you for a bit to think my offer over and I'll come back later."

"NO!" Jerika shrieked at the door, but it was already swinging shut. It clicked closed with a finality that made her want to weep. "Don't leave me here alone." The huge overhead light clicked off and she was pitched into all consuming darkness. "In the dark…"

A voice over a loudspeaker echoed through the empty stone cell. It was a voice she recognized. "You're not alone, Dr. Zithers. You're just in the dark, but if you want to light up the situation…you must tell us what you want. Do you understand?"

"Dr. Veresoli?" Jerika raised her head, tilting her right ear towards the hum of the loudspeaker. "Is that you Doctor?"

He answered her question with a question. "Do you understand?"

"Yes." She croaked. Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth, when she tried to swallow past the lump in her throat. She wished she had that drink now. "I understand that you want information, but I don't know what kind of information."

"We want to know about Fisher." The person wouldn't admit to being Dr. Veresoli for some unexplained reason, yet she knew that voice to be his. He had been the one to train her at the hospital…her mentor. "Where are the notes you were supposed to take?"

"I don't know what you're talking about." Jerika rested her chin on her chest and closed her eyes, not being able to penetrate the utter darkness that enveloped her. "I don't know any Sam Fisher. Is he a friend of yours?" She was simply stalling for time and they knew it. Jerika tried to breath deeply and evenly, so she wouldn't hyperventilate. "Is he a patient here, or something?"

"You're being tedious, Dr. I would have expected better than that from you."

"I was thinking the same of you." She looked in the direction of where she thought the men in white coats would be standing, behind a wall of protective glass. She couldn't see them, but she was sure they could see her. "I could use that drink now."

"We could use some information now, but our guest has consented to fetch you a glass of water. While we wait, why don't you tell me where your journals are?"

She shook her head. Remembering that she was in complete darkness she had to answer verbally. "I don't have any journals. I didn't keep any of Fisher."

"That's strange. A minute ago you didn't know anything about a man named Fisher and now you admit that you don't have any journals on him. What also is strange, is that you didn't write anything down during the entire time Fisher was here, since I know you're a devoted note taker in every aspect of your life and very organized…..I wonder what happened to your fastidious nature?"

The door to her cell opened and someone came in. A gnarled and dry hand took hold of hers and after a moment of examining her bindings in the dark, sliced through the twine with a razor sharp pocket knife, that grazed coolly against her skin. The hand was back in a flash and a glass of ice water was thrust into her upturned palm. She drank the water greedily and went to hand the glass back.

"Eat the ice." That same strange voice from before instructed her. "You'll thank me later."

She crunched the ice between her teeth and chewed slowly. The Person who handed her the glass smelled distinctly of old cigarette smoke and something she had recognized from her childhood, yet couldn't put a finger on. Jerika was free of the chair, but she wasn't free of her cell and in the dark, she didn't dare to walk around. The stranger was still in the room. Although she couldn't see her hand in front of her face, she could feel the presence of a second person skulking not too far away. She wondered why this person chose to stay in the absolute dark with her, instead of leaving for the room she knew held some light.

"Can you see me?" She squeaked, when a hand fell on her shoulder. "You can."

"We see a lot of things, Dr. What we don't see it your reasons for letting Fisher escape." That voice held more danger than a room full of razors, yet Jerika could not detect any anger in the tone. Just a quality of seriousness and an inflection of boredom, gave her ample reason to be afraid. "Start from the beginning and tell us what we want to know. Why did you come o work at the institute?"

Jerika cleared her throat and the hand was lifted from her shoulder. She felt like a huge weight had been lifted. "I came here to be a psychiatrist to these poor people. They were suffering and incurable, but I wanted to help. I thought I could ease their existence."

"Go on."

"After working here for a few years, I was contacted by…"

"We don't need names here. You were contacted. What next?"

She told them all of what she could remember, up until the part where Sam Fisher came into her life. Jerika had been reprogrammed to interrogate spies for the organization. She wasn't sure what organization, or who they worked for, but she was forced to do their bidding. After the initial shock of what she was doing to these poor people wore off, she became numb to their pleas and efficient at her job. Quite cold and calculating, she had gotten information from every man or woman they had given her. Sometimes it was easy and sometimes it had been hard, but she knew her business and her austere attitude towards the harsh realities of her profession got her many promotions. How else would she have gotten the position she was in now? Running a whole hospital full of loonies was no easy task. She took to the job like ants to sugar and the organization had deemed her the best. Of course her humanity still held and she would not use force or torture as a means of getting what she wanted. Nothing so base as bringing physical pain to people, would suit her. She had been recognized as a adder in her field. Sharp and quick minded, she struck at a person's psyche with precision blows.

"And Fisher? What was different about him? I'm sure you met some pretty impressive men in your life." The loudspeaker squawked.


	10. Moonless Sky

Sam listened for the siren that he was sure would go off at any moment, but nothing happened. No alarms blared, no doctors or orderlies came to search for him, and no search parties or dogs were organized to find two mental patients who had escaped from a high security hospital. It was silent, except for the occasional sound of a hooting owl above and the natural sounds of the stand of trees.

"Fisher?" Carly was awake and tensely listening to the dark as though it might crowd in on her and pin her to the ground. He could see her eyes glowing like twin moons with his night vision. "Sam!" She called again much louder.

"What is it Carly?" Sam crouched next to her and touched her shoulder. She jumped like a skittish dog and backed away from his touch, only to come back to him again and throw her arms around his neck in a hug that would have choked the life out of him, if he hadn't been able to pry her arms from around him. "You're fine now."

He heard her whimper and let himself hug her fiercely for a moment before he let her go. She reminded him of his daughter when she had lived with him in his apartment. Sara had nightmares for the first month, after her mother's death and then again when she had been kidnapped by her own boyfriend in Jerusalem. The thought made him grit his teeth. He had wanted to hurt that Eli guy so bad…..it made his blood curdle to think of how badly he had hurt his daughter. She had told him very little of the exact happenings of those fateful nights, but he could fill in the gaps with what Eli had reported.

"What's going on, Sam?" Carly's voice made Sam start. He had practically forgotten that Carly was there with him. "Why aren't there any search parties out looking for us?"

"I was just wondering that myself." Sam stood back up and looked around the small clearing once more. "I haven't seen anyone go to pick up those guards, but they should be awake by now and sounding the alarm."

"It's so quiet." Carly whispered to make her point. It was like a loud echo in a library. "There isn't even a breeze. It's like a morgue." She shivered at the thought her words had conjured.

"I was thinking more like a library, but your analogy will work too." He sort of chuckled, when she went to slap him on the shoulder and missed in the dark. "Shhh…I hear something."

Something was breathing in his ear and Sam felt himself tense up, until he concluded that it was a sound coming from within his ear and not externally. "Sam?" Yup it was Colonel Irving Lambert of the NSA. "We've had luck in location you and Miss St. John. I had the team home in on your transmitter signal. although it was hard work, we have a general location within a mile radius. Since others that are closer may be able to pinpoint your exact coordinates, better than we're able to…why they took you out that far from HQ I'll never know…"

"Like you said they may be listening."

"I'll get right to the point then. I'm sending out a helicopter from somewhere local. They can pick you up and drop you off at a safe location. I need you to keep out of trouble and stay put."

"Since you know our location, do you think you could share that information with me?"

"No." Lambert didn't emphasize why not. "We won't be able to communicate until your in the air. I'll give you a call, once your underway. Hopefully they'll be there within the hour. Good luck Fisher." With that he signed off.

Sam conveyed to Carly what Lambert had told him and although the news was comforting, they were not at ease. They listened for a while, their breaths slow and even. The moonless sky was a blanket of stars that held no protection, but darkness was a sheer shield against their enemies.

"I don't like this Sam. We should get going. It's too dangerous to stay here much longer."

"Lambert said we need to stay put, but I guess you're right. This is way too dangerous. The least we can do is climb up that tree." He pointed to a tall spruce on his right and Carly made a noise like a mouse squeak, when she saw how high it was. "It's tall and sturdy and easy to climb, plus the piney smell should mask some of our odor...in case they have hound dogs. Its harder to shoot up a tree in any circumstance."

"Oh, that sounds great Fisher." She clenched her teeth to keep them from rattling out of her head at the thought of being treed like a raccoon and being shot at by high powered riffles. "Then we can be stuck up a tree to rot instead of down here."

"I don't plan on being any sort of shish-ka-Sam, so you go up that tree and I'll keep an eye on things from down here. You'll be safer up there if they do come anyhow. I'll lead them away and they'll likely not even notice you up there…if they do come." He knew they would come, but he didn't know when and how many would follow and with what, so he left the details blank. They would know when it happened and there was no use in him speculating now. "Lambert said he's sent an airlift. Hopefully we'll be out of this place before they strike. Now, shimmy up that tree and be as quiet as a church mouse."

"You'll have to help me. I'm still kind of woozy from the drugs they gave me and I can't see in the dark." She chewed on her bottom lip as she was guided blindly to the base of the spruce and her hand was placed on the bottom branch. "It's kind of sticky."

"That's good for gripping. OK. It's like climbing a ladder from here. Think of this as the first rung of the ladder and hoist yourself up until you can reach the second rung and you'll be fine." Halfway between the fourth and fifth branches he just had to add. "By-the-way, don't look down." He smiled although she couldn't see it.

She grumbled to herself. "Now I know why they say that in the movies. It just to make people want to look down. Good thing it's so dark, otherwise…bang, zoom to the moon…"

Sam could just make out every other word, but it was enough to make him want to laugh out loud, though he dared not.


	11. One Chance Only

Bright florescent lights flashed overhead in a nauseating cascade, as they drove the gurney down the hall. The white walls were rust stained from a decade of leaking pipes, that hadn't been serviced since before the eighties. One man in a white uniform guided the gurney at a brisk march, which made the patient on the bed dizzy with anxiety.

"I know you." The voice croaked past the parched lips, her eyes tearing against the unfamiliar brightness of the hall. "Where are you taking me?"

No answer came, but the orderly was looking straight ahead and did not hear her speak. He hurried on his way, as though he were in a hurry to get an abhorrent chore done and out of the way, before he could move on to something more agreeable. The lack of recognition on the orderly's face, when he did look in her direction, made her want to cry out in anguish. Tears flowed freely and she did cry out weakly, at finding her hands strapped with leather buckles to the bed rails.

"Where are we going?" Jerika whimpered, though she knew it would do no good to ask the deaf orderly, James. She choked on tears and began to cough. "I want to go home."

James slammed the end of the gurney through a doorway, sending the doors swinging wildly on rusty hinges. They stopped abruptly and rough hands worked on the leathers. Before she could get her bearings, she was hoisted onto another bed and left there, under an intensely hot lamp.

"I want to go home!" Jerika shouted at James, whom she had always considered to be a friend, until now. "Do you hear me? I want to go home."

James blinked at her as though he didn't know what she was talking about and then a queer glint came into his eyes. "Yes, I can hear you. I could always hear you. I'm not deaf you know. Besides, where would you go...other than here?"

Her heart lurched in her chest. "You could hear me all this time and you never said a word?"

James just winked and smiled an awful smile, before exiting.

When she went to move her head and look around, she saw that the room was painted dark olive green, had no windows, had no other doors, except the one she went through, and was lined with shelves. Each shelf held medical instruments, some of which she didn't know the name of and others that she wished she hadn't known. She flinched as the loudspeaker was clicked on.

"As you can guess, we'll not be using your normal methods of coercion. This is not to say that we don't trust your word, but the fact is…we've found you to be unreliable and we just can't take the risk. In our line of work you can't mess up more than once. I'm afraid we have to let you go."

The voice of Dr. Varesoli clicked off, as the door squeaked open. The lights around the room dimmed, leaving the center light as the only source of illumination. Jerika began to sweat, as someone walked around to the head of the bed and started clattering around in the dusty, old tools on the shelves.

"Head down." The smoke worn voice of the person she had met earlier, ordered. A palm slapped on her forehead, when she went to look around. "Don't move."

Beads of perspiration broke out on her upper lip. "What are you going to do to me?"

A grating, coughing laugh floated over her head. "I'll tell you as we proceed, if that's what you like."

A leather-like tanned face, haloed by wiry red over-treated hair, leaned over Jerika's head and grinned in her face. Red lipstick smeared a front tooth and drew the eyes. Blue eye-shadow shimmered in the crags and folds of eyelids that enveloped pale green-hazel eyes.


	12. Choppers

"Welcome to Nebraska Mr. Fisher." The young man smiled broadly, as he gave them both a hand up into the army chopper.

The guys on board were all youthfully pleasant and Sam was reminded once again of his age and what Carly should really be looking for instead of playing with computers in a darkened office. Although Sam was still capable of performing his job, he was feeling his age today. Carly settled down on the bench next to him and buckled in, all the while keeping an eye or a hand on him as though she were afraid he might abandon her if she didn't keep a constant vigil. The one who had helped them into the transport sat opposite of them as the army chopper climbed in altitude. His Expression was genuine kindness yet some questions bubbled to the surface and Sam could see them in his eyes.

"What's your question Private?" Sam's voice was low so he wouldn't awaken Carly, who was sleeping with her head resting on his shoulder.

The Private looked at his feet and cleared his throat. "It's just that we don't…" A second man jabbed the Private in the ribs with his elbow. The first man's smile came back in full force. "The men and I don't get to meet anyone of real importance very often."

"And you think I'm someone of importance?"

Carly snuggled under his chin and although it wasn't unpleasant, he felt uncomfortable under the close scrutiny of these army regulars. He tugged her closer though and unconsciously threw an arm around her middle when she whimpered in her sleep.

"Yes sir I do." The Private said in an excited whisper, trying to hush his enthusiasm in respect for the sleeping girl. "Our unit was called on a special detail only once before and that was when the president landed in Omaha during the September eleventh thing."

Someone else spoke on Sam's right. "We're here on request of some bigwig in D.C."

"What the hell are you doing out here…..dressed like a navy seal too?" An older, much fatter, balding man walked down the center aisle. Intense dislike immediately replaced Sam's fondness towards these men. He had a pudgy sallow baby face that made Sam wonder how he had passed the physical requirements to become a soldier of any kind. "We weren't told anything but where to pick you two up. Beings as this is Nebraska and thousands of miles away from any oceans…what you doing in that frogman outfit?"

Sam wasn't sure what he could or should tell these men so he told them what Lambert had told him on so many occasions. "It's classified on a need to know basis."

The other man's jaw worked repeatedly tightening and relaxing. He clearly didn't like being left out of the loop, but there were just some things he wouldn't know in his chosen career in the military and he had to suck it up and follow orders. Sam couldn't blame him for feeling a bit perturbed, since he hated it when Lambert gave him the same bullshit answer. The young men who had been so curious, were doubly so now, but they knew procedure and became crestfallen and smiles fell to low beams. He nodded to himself and then dug through his pants pocket and came up with a crumpled pack of cigarettes.

"Want one? He offered Sam a choice of two broken and smashed Marlboro Menthols. "I've been trying to quit, but I just can't kick the habit."

"No thanks. I don't smoke." Sam declined with a shake oh his head and a wave of his hand. "I never took up that particular habit, myself."

"I started when I was eleven. That's fourteen years ago already." Sam had placed him around twenty-five years of age when he had first laid eyes on him. "I wish I had never picked up that first cig."

"I heard it's easier to quit while you're young." Sam did take a stick of cinnamon gum, when it was offered to him. "Both of my grandparents on my mom's side and my dad's side died of lung cancer. So it never had any appeal for me." He had no feelings bound to his words it was a simple statement given freely.

The younger man was silent for a moment, soaking in that information with a grim nod while lighting up his own cigarette and taking that first long drag on the filter. "Not only that, but the price on these things keeps increasing. My mom keeps telling me to quit and I could have an extra five hundred dollars at the end of the year." The _kid_ as Sam now labeled him crumbled up the last of his cigarettes and stomped out the butt of the one barely puffed cigarette on the floor of the chopper. "No time like the present." Exhaling slowly as though he were actually going to quit smoking just then, he opened a stick of gum, folded it up three or four times, and stuffed it in his mouth with a satisfied sigh. "This sure tastes a lot better than menthol at least." He glanced towards Carly and with a worried brow and asked Sam a question. "Well your mission must have been tough? That little girl looks plain tuckered out."

That's how people saw her? "Yes." He had to admit it to himself as he examined her in her sleep. Carly St. John was everything he wasn't. She was the epitome of a nymph. Her fair skin was untouched by time. Lighthearted, she was unhampered by constraints of life and had boundless energy and a penchant for knowledge and technology. She could do things with a computer that made Sam squirm, knowing that she could possibly have such power. Truth be told, she was young, smart, pretty, and had a nation at her fingertips.


End file.
